9/23/09: Lake Bunyonyi, Uganda to Kampala, Uganda
The first two weeks of our tour will literally get us nowhere. Today we will begin our journey back to where we started: Nairobi, Kenya. Including today, we will do three all-day drives over the beyond bumpy Ugandan and Kenyan roads. Each morning we will wake up just after 5am, break down tents, eat breakfast and pile in the truck in order to reach our next destination before sundown. Each night we will stay at a location we have already explored (the Red Chilli campsite outside of Kampala and the Naiberi resort near Eldoret).
I’m not overly excited about these days.
…
Our first segment went pretty much exactly as expected. It was Zhou’s and my turn to sit at the back left table, better known as “the table under the big leak in the roof.” Since we spent all day driving through Uganda, the truck spent all day in the rain, and therefore Zhou and I spent all day in the rain.
The other reason that sitting in the back is so much fun is because you sit over the back wheels. Anyone who’s ever ridden in the back of the bus knows how much fun that is over smooth roads. Over roads with bumps bigger than a small goat (and sometimes including a small goat, unfortunately), you’re pretty much resigned to praying that your seat belt holds and you don’t fly through the hole in the roof.
I don’t know about Zhou, but I went to my happy place starting at 7am and didn’t return until we arrived at the Red Chilli around 4:30.
Once we arrived, it was back to reality. Zhou went to work on her grad school applications and I cleaned the truck with my chore group. (I assume when we get back to the States that’s how it will go: Zhou studying and me cleaning.)
After dinner we spent our last night sitting around the table with our two closest friends on the trip, Shaun and Kwi (the “Belgians”), as their tour ends in Kampala. Shaun, through his infinite wisdom of American culture (he’s seen A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila), noted early on that we Americans can talk to you for a half hour and then consider ourselves your best friend. So that’s what we did with him and Kwi.
In case you’re curious, here’s all of the Dutch I learned from the two of them during our two weeks on the road together:
“Doodbijten” means “Bite to death”
“Ick see u rragft, zuchen” means “I love you, sweetie”
“Ya” means, as Shaun puts it, “Ya” or as Kwi puts it, “Yes”
“Leaven hass butschin” means “Lady bug”
“Hottentotten” means “South African bushmen”
“Hottentottententententoffslarin” means “A group of tents occupied by South African bushmen”
Anyone who actually knows Dutch and is offended by this, please blame Shaun and Kwi. Looking back on it, I suppose I never learned “hello,” “goodbye” or even the most important word, according to my father-in-law, “bathroom.”
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Picture of the Day: Remember my jump into Lake Bunyonyi from two days ago? Look at how graceful and elegant I was.
Shaun had jumped that day as well. Look at how Belgian and out of control his form was.
